SenatorNaz

“Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man... No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.” — John F Kennedy

[SenatorNaz @Senator_Naz]

Ukrainians:

[President of Russia @KremlinRussia_E]

Putin: I do not regard Ukraine as an unfriendly country. Russians and Ukrainians are a single people

[Rod Dreher @roddreher]

Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) could not possibly be better on the lessons for liberals from Viktor Orban's defeat. I've unlocked the whole column here, but note especially the attached.
https://t.co/ilk4mUHTd6

[Lawrence Freedman @LawDavF]

This is my assessment of why Trump’s war went so badly wrong. Underestimating an enemy and a belief in a quick victory are familiar sources of failure, compounded in this sense by incredible ultimatums and delusional claims. (£/free trial), https://t.co/6y6yBfbCo9?

[World Elects @ElectsWorld]

🇭🇺#Hungary, parliamentary election results:

29,2 % counted:

TISZA: 50,4 % - 132 seats
Fidesz-KDNP: 41 % - 59
MH: 6,1 % - 8
DK: 1,2 % - 0
MKKP: 0,7 % - 0

The opposition Respect and Freedom Party (TISZA) led by Péter Magyar expands its lead over Prime Minister Orban's Fidesz party.

[SenatorNaz @Senator_Naz]

Reminder that in our infinite wisdom, the United States is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Our entire post-WWII foreign policy is built on the fundamentals of freedom of navigation. Yet we’re not even signatories to UNCLOS.

[Institute for the Study of War @TheStudyofWar]

Iran is using the existence of an unknown number of naval mines it laid in the Strait of Hormuz to force ships to use Iranian territorial waters to traverse the Strait, which enables Iran to shakedown these ships for fees while the ships are in Iranian territorial waters. Iran likely designed its threatening behavior and its shakedowns to disrupt the global economy, which Iran calculates will enable it to extract concessions from the United States.

Iran warned merchant ships that mines could exist in a “hazardous area” that covers 1,394 sq km of the Strait, including the normal traffic separation scheme (shipping lanes) that ships use to transit the Strait. Ships seeking to avoid the Iranian-declared hazardous area must transit Iranian territorial waters.

Iran then shakes down these merchant ships by extracting “protection fees.” These “protection” fees protect ships from Iranian attacks. This protection racket is illegal under maritime law. No state bordering a strait is permitted to restrict traffic or extract fees under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Unspecified US officials told the New York Times on April 11 that Iran laid its mines—of which there are reportedly fewer than a dozen, according to a previous March 23 report—” haphazardly,” which has prevented Iran from locating or removing them. These mines may or may not be in the 1,394 sq km “hazardous area.”

The threat of mines also enables Iran to keep the price of oil and shipping insurance as high as possible for as long as possible without conducting attacks that would cause the ceasefire to collapse. Iran may calculate that the high price of oil and shipping insurance would cause the United States to cave on some of Iran’s demands.

The United States is attempting to undermine Iran’s ability to use the threat of mines in the “hazardous area” by using US Navy destroyers to prove that the normal traffic separation scheme is safe and viable for traffic. Iran can only use the threat of mines to keep these costs high if the fear of mines persists. US President Donald Trump said on April 11 that the United States is “starting the process of clearing out” the strait.

Arleigh Burke-Class destroyers USS Frank E. Peterson and USS Michael Murphy transited the Strait to clear the Strait of naval mines. US CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper said that the US Navy will share the route of safe passage with civilian shipping as soon as possible. Such a move would undermine Iran’s threats and badly damage its leverage in negotiations. The Qatari Transport Ministry announced later on April 11 that it will resume operations ”for all types of maritime vessels and ships” between 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM local time on April 12.

[SenatorNaz @Senator_Naz]

@AlexanderMcCoy4 And yet they still directly contributed to exacerbating the suffering of both the Lebanese and Palestinians.

The suggestion that Harris wasn’t the logical choice for Arab Americans concerned about Israeli behavior is ridiculous.

[Dan Lamothe @DanLamothe]

U.S. forces have rescued the missing crew member of a fighter jet that was shot down over Iran, and all personnel involved in the rescue have returned safely, a U.S. official familiar with the operation told The Washington Post.

[SenatorNaz @Senator_Naz]

U.S. Rescues Downed Air Force Officer Deep Inside Iran, Officials Say https://t.co/hRh6AxYhq3 via @NYTimes

[Barak Ravid @BarakRavid]

🚨🚨🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷U.S. special forces rescued the second crew member of the F-15 fighter jet that was shot down over Iran, three U.S. officials told me. My story on @axios
https://t.co/jIuE7pqOHI

[SenatorNaz @Senator_Naz]

Fantastic news. Incredible work by the Air Force.

[Jennifer Griffin @JenGriffinFNC]

Fox News can confirm that the 2nd crew member of the downed F15E fighter jet has been rescued and he and the members of the rescue team that extracted him from behind enemy lines in Iran are all safely out of Iran. That according to two senior US officials and multiple well placed sources in the region. The Weapons Systems Officer ejected along with the pilot when their F15E Strike Eagle they were flying was struck Thursday night (early Friday local time) in southwest Iran. 

The WSO used the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training to evade capture, hiding on an elevated ridge after hiking away from the wreckage and putting out an emergency beacon.) US Special Operations rescue forces to include PJs (United States Air Force Pararescuemen (PJs) and many layers of elite rescue forces took part in the complex, layered mission to both find the crew member and also keep the Iranian forces who were hunting the American weapons system operator at bay. There are videos that have appeared from local eyewitnesses that show what appear to have been  injured and dead Iranian members of the IRGC and Basij who were looking for the downed American crew member. Fox has learned there was fighting on the ground but no Americans killed during the operation. “It was a very complex operation to retrieve the downed service member,” a well placed source briefed on the operation told me. Many different branches of the US military were involved in the rescue.

Fox News can confirm the A10 Warthog that crashed Friday was involved in providing cover for the rescue teams searching for the pilot. That A10 crashed in Kuwait (first reported by ABC Friday) but the A10 pilot managed to eject safely and was rescued. There was destruction of aircraft which have sensitive equipment on board, I am told, all part of this complex CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue) mission.

The F15E was pretty much destroyed on impact. Two rescue helicopters were hit by enemy fire on  Friday and crew members onboard were injured by enemy fire but managed to make it out of Iran.

There were a lot of elements to this rescue, I am told.

[SenatorNaz @Senator_Naz]

@FrankLuntz And 30% of new car sales in California are electric. Catch up America. The future is coming and it’s either Chinese BYD electric cars or ours.

California’s incentives and disincentives are make the state a tech adoption leader. You can either bemoan this or embrace it.

[Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof]

Ending the war in the near future while Iran still controls the crucial waterway would be a geopolitical disaster for America’s allies and partners in the Middle East and beyond, said Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“Iran would be able to enforce selective sanctions on whomever it wants and whenever it wants, and essentially hold the flow of shipping through the strait at risk if it desires to do so,” Alhasan said. “This would ensure indefinite Iranian leverage over the Gulf states’ economies and over global energy security, and it would leave Iran in a state in which it is still capable of posing a threat, wounded, embittered, and in a hostile posture vis-à-vis most countries in the region.” @HTAlhasan

https://t.co/mZ8moZ4EGP

[Foreign Policy @ForeignPolicy]

The United States and Israel can win every exchange of force and still lose control of the conflict’s trajectory and aims, write @ProfessorPape and @AliVaez. https://t.co/Fu2VdXr3w9

[ProfTalmadge @ProfTalmadge]

Former CENTCOM commander Gen. Votel skeptical of military value of Kharg seizure: "I’m not sure what the significance is of putting troops there. It’s only about 20 miles off the coast of Iran. So you’re definitely under the threat of their weapon systems. You’d be very, very vulnerable there. And I don’t know that it would give us any particular tactical advantage that we don’t already have or couldn’t get someplace else at an offset location where we have established bases and other things like that. So I’m not sure what the tactical advantage of it is." https://t.co/dWp9zYUZ3w

[michaelturton @michaelturton]

This is the absolute nadir. Literally thousands of scholars, researchers, commentators, and smart people have spent their lifetimes learning and teaching about Taiwan.

But instead, we get this lunatic. Great job, Economist.

[SenatorNaz @Senator_Naz]

How do people not find this embarrassing?

[William Turton @WilliamTurton]

A source sent me this photo of Kash Patel’s customized Nike’s. The shoes feature a number 9 (Patel is the 9th FBI director), a Punisher skull (a vigilante killer from Marvel Comics), and his personal logo (K$H). The backs of the shoes show the FBI motto: "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity". Patel was photographed wearing them at an FBI Academy event that featured UFC fighters.

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

Having a strategy, and having your allies buy into that strategy so that you can coordinate effectively, is one of those silly woke things

Scoop: U.S. dismayed by Israel's Iran fuel strikes, sources say https://t.co/SHG59BuT4g

[SenatorNaz @Senator_Naz]

The Iranian leadership doing its best to alienate the entire planet.

[Tehran Times @TehranTimes79]

#BREAKING
'Azerbaijan must immediately expel the Zionists and their assets from their soil, or they will become targets for the Iranian Armed Forces' – Khatam Al-Anbiyaa HQ

[Gerard Baker @gerardtbaker]

It’s tedious to do censorious comparisons with war leaders past. But I think historians will look at things like this, contrast it with the kind of wartime messaging from past presidents and find in it evidence of how fundamentally unserious we have become as a culture.

[Ruth Deyermond @ruth_deyermond]

There are, inevitably, lots of instant air power experts on here at the moment. This is an actual expert.